/m/omnichatter

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God I hate that Budweiser commercial that runs nonstop on GameDay. All of the jingoistic bullshit aside, no recently returned vet wears his field uni to his welcome home party! GODDAMNIT YOU SHITASS OF DOUCHES!!!

Of course as I'm talking about it, the Cardinal tv guys are still accusing the Pirates of diving into the ball. Focusing on Walkers second hbp, which was clearly NOT a dive.

I strongly disagree with that. Both Walker, and the dude who was nicked on the elbow pad an inning or so later (was cooking a quesadilla dinner with about five plates in motion so didn't see exactly who, but was clear what happened) could have avoided being hit if they wanted to. They both (properly, according to current enforcement of rules) CHOSE not to, and in Walker's case, at least, the ump should have called it a ball, not a free base. Walker egregiously turned 135 degrees and stuck his ass out over the batting box line, biggio-style. The later guy just didn't move at all, and kind of leaned his elbow pad back just far enough from where the ball was gonna be to get tagged- but at least that pitch was actually inside; across the line, dude.

Neither matted, since Liriano's slider was amazing tonight, and the Pirate's bullpen was really good. And it's actually fun to see a team take full advantage of what seems to be yet another MLB market efficiency- players who exploit the umpires' inability to properly call HPB's.

In fact, it would be an awesome rule change if we just repealed rule 6.08(b), such that players no longer have to make attempts to avoid the ball, and in fact, reward players who dive over the plate to get hit, assuming they commit. But the commitment is the big deal; they shouldn't be free just to get tickled and then jog to first base. Make it so that if the player crosses the home plate/ batter's box line and gets hit, then tagged, he's out, or maybe even if he dives and missed the ball (pitchout) he's out, and any pitch between the batters box line and the home plate line is an automatic strike if the batter's funky elbow pad thingy is across the line. That should be easy to do with lasers and stuff. And with two strikes, if it hits you and the catcher still catches it, it should be in play, just like a foul tip with two strikes. Screw it, I want to see batters wearing chain mail; that would be fun.

IMHO, that would make for an interesting ninth inning scenario, where the batter dives across the plate and gets hit by a strike, taking first base, and then batter two dives across home plate, but they pitch out, and turn a double play. Much more game theory, and I suspect it'll actually be really, really hard to dive to get hit by pitches that are close to the plate.

The combination of the team's poor play and Rogers' absolutely awful broadcasting makes the Jays almost impossible to watch right now. I don't often watch other broadcasts, but it seems like Toronto runs far more in-game advertisements than other channels. I'm not talking about "this pitching change is brought to you by..." stuff (although they do that too), I'm talking about virtual ads, running banner ads, and what basically amount to pop-up ads in between batters. It's absolutely awful stuff and there's no hope of it ending any time soon.